The Russians want to build bases on the Moon

[taovps15]

Latest ambitions of one of the leading countries in space science is building bases on the moon high technology and turned the place into a living for humans.

It has been over 45 years since the first human to set foot on the moon on July 20/7/1970, the world's only known American first nations people to set foot on the moon. But since the country shifted to explore Mars, birch powers to select lunar plans are based build future life for humanity.

In 1969, the Russian (then Soviet Union) each autonomous robot car launched Lunokhod 1 name of the space program Lunokhod moon to explore the surface. Unfortunately the first attempt failed because the satellite does not go into orbit as planned. A second attempt later in the month 1/1973 continued failure. Since then, Russia has not conducted any activities other lunar exploration costs and the risks too great.

Although failure but the latest announcement of Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency), they are looking to establish a high-tech facility with science labs and technology, launch pad and landing a spacecraft , even an astronomical observatory on the moon.

With this latest plan, Roscosmos hopes to restart the program by sending the robot probe named Luna 25. The agency expects Russian Luna 25 will be on the south pole of the Moon in 2024.

Model probes Luna 25

The new spacecraft will include 8 camera orientation, help take pictures and observe the drill ship. Luna 25 powered by radioactive plutonium fuel source 238. During decomposition, plutonium-238 will generate heat and boat batteries will have the task of transformation into electricity.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), plutonium-238 is not a dangerous radioactive substance can be harmful to human health (plutonium-238 in uranium-234 alpha radiation and no penetration). However, the world is gradually exhausted its fuel supply and the space agencies of the country are looking for alternative materials. Unknown Russian reserves available plutonium-238 or they had other technological secrets.

Radioactive material plutonium-238 self-luminous decay by alpha

However, Russia will not be a "loner" on the moon by the European Space Agency (ESA) said they also decided to return to the Moon exploration program.

But as mentioned, the US is moving his attention toward Mars. Some experts universe and the engineers of this country have criticized the US did not go and build bases on the Moon before approaching Mars. According to them, the direction the moon before - after Mars will cost at cost (total) and more dangerous for NASA.

Even former astronaut Buzz Aldrin repeatedly been voiced about NASA's Mars mission. He also put forward a proposal for the NASA should consider building both bases on the Moon and Mars instead of just focusing on a current destination.

Russia's ambitions had been mentioned in a speech by Igor Komaro, head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) in June. He said that the mission of exploring the moon in the period 2029 - 2030 as one of the top priorities of Russia.

A concept of the base on the Moon

In any matter, but Russia's plan is also a good sign for all humanity. Because, in fact, not many countries have the ability to set foot on the moon and the Apollo Program is a very expensive program. Besides, Americans despite presence there over the last 4 decades, but they have not really exploited this place but only conduct scientific exploration.

[Sensei]

They cant even feed their people, and have to import *food*..

And they dream about Moon or space.. ? Rather propaganda..

There are more urgent problems, really.

It's always have been this way: russia exchange oil & gas, for food and technology..

 

 

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), plutonium-238 is not a dangerous radioactive substance can be harmful to human health (plutonium-238 in uranium-234 alpha radiation and no penetration). However, the world is gradually exhausted its fuel supply and the space agencies of the country are looking for alternative materials. Unknown Russian reserves available plutonium-238 or they had other technological secrets.

Pu-238 is artificial unstable isotope, created by human.

If you have Uranium, you can make Plutonium from it.

Especially if somebody have their own nuclear plants.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Sensei

[Phi for All]

 

Besides, Americans despite presence there over the last 4 decades, but they have not really exploited this place but only conduct scientific exploration.

 

 

So, Americans are horrible when they exploit others, and horrible when they don't exploit the Moon. Got it.

 

There is a treaty you know (sort of). Much of the world understands that the ocean floor and the Moon should never be the basis for international conflict. Exploiting the Moon is not something I would support.

[overtone]

What was the original language of that article?

[CharonY]

 

They cant even feed their people, and have to import *food*..

And they dream about Moon or space.. ? Rather propaganda..

There are more urgent problems, really.

It's always have been this way: russia exchange oil & gas, for food and technology..

 

 

 

In a global market having to import food is not the same as not being able to feed people.

 

Edit, assuming this is a news article it would be great if the respective article is being linked or referenced.

Edited January 18, 2016 by CharonY

[overtone]

 

 

In a global market having to import food is not the same as not being able to feed people.

Hmmmm. It is, kind of. It's a significant vulnerability, both of the State facing other States, and the citizenry facing its own government. Food insecurity has been operating as leverage against populations all over the world for a long time. The key for the State, of course, is to make sure this vulnerability is in the right hands and under control. If that cannot be accomplished domestically - if, as in Russia or China recent past, it turns out that people so badly governed physically cannot feed themselves even if permitted by the State, say - then the nearest option is military force (other people have food), and failing that acquiescence to subjugation (other powers have control of food).

[CharonY]

Well, true enough. What I was thinking about was more in terms of whether they could afford a moon base. I.e. if the economy as a whole is solid enough food vulnerability would not make other ventures impossible. If on the other hand famines were rampant (to provide the other extreme) matters would be different, of course.

[pavelcherepan]

I don't think that Russian bases on the Moon is anything but a fanciful notion. For starters, Russia atm doesn't have a launcher capable of supporting even a return mission to Moon, let alone building a base there. The heaviest version of the new launcher that's being developed - Angara A5 is only capable of ~25 tonnes to LEO, which is 5.6 times smaller than that of Saturn V.

 

 

They cant even feed their people, and have to import *food*..

 

Citation needed.

 

This paper, for example, says the following:

 

 

 

Policy and economic reforms in Russia were not accompanied by a food security crisis or macronutrient deprivation of the population. Yet, unhealthy diets in contemporary Russia contribute to the burden of NCDs and related avoidable mortality.

 

And

 

 

 

The current preeminent nutritional problem for children of all ages in Russia is overweight. Latest available data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey suggest that overweight in Russia is higher during early adolescence, as up to 32% of boys and 18% of girls among 11-year-olds were overweight (31), rates which decrease with age during adolescence (Fig. 3).

 

The article states that based on their findings the percentage of Russian population who are malnourished is less than 6%, while for most other people calorific intake is well above international standards.

 

Also, don't forget that Russia is the second largest producers of grain in the world, third largest grain exporter. Most of the countries have to import food to a certain extent. Russia does have a negative trade balance of food imports vs exports, but main imports are goods with high added value - three main are meat, beverages and cheese - while exports are mostly grain, seeds, oil and sugar. Yet, still, for most of the food products Russian agricultural sector fills the market 80% or more.

 

Sensei, I find your comment quite offensive and even more so when it's not supported by any evidence.

 

http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/880591/gfa15i_002.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481043/

Edited January 20, 2016 by pavelcherepan

[Sensei]

I don't think that Russian bases on the Moon is anything but a fanciful notion. For starters, Russia atm doesn't have a launcher capable of supporting even a return mission to Moon, let alone building a base there. The heaviest version of the new launcher that's being developed - Angara A5 is only capable of ~25 tonnes to LEO, which is 5.6 times smaller than that of Saturn V.

 

 

Citation needed.

 

This paper, for example, says the following:

 

 

And

 

 

The article states that based on their findings the percentage of Russian population who are malnourished is less than 6%, while for most other people calorific intake is well above international standards.

 

Also, don't forget that Russia is the second largest producers of grain in the world, third largest grain exporter. Most of the countries have to import food to a certain extent. Russia does have a negative trade balance of food imports vs exports, but main imports are goods with high added value - three main are meat, beverages and cheese - while exports are mostly grain, seeds, oil and sugar. Yet, still, for most of the food products Russian agricultural sector fills the market 80% or more.

 

Sensei, I find your comment quite offensive and even more so when it's not supported by any evidence.

 

I think you misunderstood me. I didn't said they are starving right now.

My words can be rephrased to "if they didn't import food, their people would be malnourished". Is that better?

 

Can I use simple mathematics instead.. ?

 

Russian population is 143.5 millions.

Each of them is eating (or at least should) 0.5 kg of bread, 400-500 grams of potatoes, 150 grams of sliced meats (and/or cheese), 300-400 grams of chicken (or other meat (but they are even more expensive to produce) ). Per day.

To produce 2.5 kg wheat bread, there is needed 1 kg of wheat.

To produce 1 kg chicken there is needed 4 kg of feed.

To produce 1 kg pig there is needed 6-8 kg of feed.

To produce 1 kg beef there is needed even more.

143.5*10^6 * 365 * ( 0.2 + 0.15*8 + 0.4*4 ) = ~ 157 bln kg = ~157 mln tons of grain needed per year to be self-independent country from external supplies of food (if fish meal is not used at all).

And it's still very idealized number. As not all kg of chicken is eatable. And I didn't include lost during production and delivery to consumer.

 

Now see numbers how much grain russia is producing (source mostly wikipedia or google:XXX world producers). It's hard to find reliable up-to-day data.

59.7 mln tons of wheat (other source says 60.5 mln tons in 2015). Enough to be self-independent for bread at least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production_statistics

4 mln tons of oat

0.834 mln tons of buckwheat

2 mln tons of rye

15.4 mln tons of barley

 

Feed for animals can be not only grain but also fish meal.

http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=ru&commodity=fish-meal&graph=domestic-consumption

Couldn't find reliable data. Data from one website does not match data from other website. They're often self exclusive..

 

According to this

http://www.pigprogress.net/Pork-Processing/Markets/2015/1/Russian-pork-imports-down-40-in-2014-1693622W/

russian pork import was 543000 tonnes in 11 month (prior ban) = ~592 mln kg/y

/ 365 / 0.3 kg per capita = 5.4 mln people per day could have cutlet.

 

According to this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato

russian potatoes production (2013) is 30.2 mln tonnes * 1000 / 365 / 143.5 mln people = 0.57 kg/per day/per capita.

enough to not have to import.

Edited January 20, 2016 by Sensei

[pavelcherepan]

This is getting quite a bit off-topic. Hopefully one of the mods can split it to a separate post.

 

I don't agree with your maths. Let's just count calorific value of Russian agricultural produce and compare with requirements to feed 143.5 million people, since we're talking about malnourishment, not about a balanced diet.

 

143.5 million people * 2000 kcal/day * 365 days = 1.047*10¹⁴ kcal required for all the Russian population to not be starving. The data below is taken from Russian Wiki, that unlike it's English counterpart has stats from Russian bureau of statistics up to 2014.

 

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B7%D1%8F%D0%B9%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8

 

In 2014 Russia has produced 59.711 million tonnes of wheat. A kilo of wheat has 3151 kcal. Hence, 59.711*10⁹ kg * 3151 kcal/kg = 1.88*10¹⁴ kcal which already is more than enough to feed everyone. As a result Russia exports ~16 Mt of wheat per year.

 

There's about 46 Mt of other grains produced in 2014, including rye, rice etc, but I won't bore you with doing calculations for all of these.

 

There's been (in 2014) approximately 31 Mt of potatoes produced. At ~1000 kcal/kg that yields 31*10⁹kg * 1000 = 3.1*10¹³ kcal

 

What else. Beef. 1.654 Mt produced in 2014. ~2500 kcal/kg * 1.654*10⁹kg = 4.135*10¹², pork - 6.84*10¹² kcal and on it goes.

 

 

 

To produce 2.5 kg wheat bread, there is needed 1 kg of wheat.
To produce 1 kg chicken there is needed 4 kg of feed.
To produce 1 kg pig there is needed 6-8 kg of feed.
To produce 1 kg beef there is needed even more.
143.5*10^6 * 365 * ( 0.2 + 0.15*8 + 0.4*4 ) = ~ 157 bln kg = ~157 mln tons of grain needed per year to be self-independent country from external supplies of food (if fish meal is not used at all).

 

It's incorrect to use only the numbers for grain production that people eat to calculate potential output of meat production. In the same link above (you'll probably need Google translate) you can see that total forage production in 2014 was ~62 Mt. Then if we add up the total grain production of approx. ~105 Mt and forage production of 62 Mt we get a total of 167 Mt which is more than required by your calculations for a self-independent country.

 

Also, you can compare the agricultural GDP with imports. The agriculture is about 4% of Russia's GDP which was ~3.493 U$ trillion (PPP) in 2016, which makes agriculture produce ~139 U$ billion (PPP). Imports for the same period were about 25 U$ billion, or about 15% of the total agricultural consumption and among these 25 billion dollars of imports third and fourth biggest imports are tobacco and tobacco products and beverages, which are all really not food. So, actually the % will be smaller.

Edited January 21, 2016 by pavelcherepan

[Ken Fabian]

There isn't much science to do there apart from geology (lunology?) that wouldn't be better done elsewhere. That may lead to discovery of mineral resources beyond those already known - refractory elements like magnesium, aluminium, silicon, iron and titanium mostly and mostly not in short supply plus some potential for platinum group metals - but exploiting them involves the development of entire systems of transport, construction, mining and refining that currently don't exist, for an environment more hostile than any exploited on Earth. The requirements would be somewhere beyond current cutting edge and could be presumed to be prohibitively expensive.

 

As a PR exercise for their aerospace industry - a bit like a formula 1 car is for an automotive manufacturer - it may have some value. Some extending knowledge for it's own sake could add some more - if they can afford such extravagances.The afficionados of space tech will get thrilled, perhaps imagining this will bring their optimistic dreams of inhabiting space a bit closer. I remain very doubtful such optimism is well grounded - an abundance of resources and opportunities are one thing, exploiting them successfully is another.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Ken Fabian

[pavelcherepan]

There is still some science to be done on the Moon. First of all, it's a really good training of how we can establish bases on other celestial objects and it will be of extreme use if we do plan on colonising the space. Also lunar low gravity and lack of atmosphere is a good test bed for a whole bunch of engineering and scientific tests. For example, we can test effectiveness of different versions of radiation protection that we'd need later on for long manned missions, test various things relating to future asteroid mining, resource extraction, ore beneficiation, large-scale metal 3d printing and many others.

 

And we shouldn't forget that the base on the Moon would be an amazing for all sorts of astronomical observations. There's no atmosphere, telescopes would be easier to maintain (compared to Hubble) if there's a permanent base there and easier to upgrade.

 

Unfortunately, I read recently that Roskosmos had to make some cuts to it's fundamental science programs for the next few years and focus more on developing new launchers (Angara family), new manned ship to replace Soyuz and on moving a lot of infrastructure and training bases to Vostochniy kosmodrome. And among things that have been cut was a lot relating to the proposed lunar program.

Edited January 21, 2016 by pavelcherepan

[Ken Fabian]

After thinking about it -

 

As a PR exercise for their aerospace industry - a bit like a formula 1 car is for an automotive manufacturer - it may have some value.

 

 

- that seems improbable; such a project would far exceed total turnover of a not very profitable industry (or at least of the space element of a aerospace industry), unlike F1 which uses a relatively small portion of total turnover. An attempt to get a big, enduring commitment of government support?

 

...it's a really good training of how we can establish bases on other celestial objects and it will be of extreme use if we do plan on colonising the space

 

 

Pavelcherepan, given that I think the viability as well as benefits of space colonisation are vastly overstated (especially with respect to the difficulties and costs) I don't think a lunar base as a training exercise is good value. I don't doubt that there are plenty of people with unbounded optimism and enthusiasm for human expansion into space here - it seems like the sort of forum that would attract them. I'm not convinced it's based on realistic assessments of those difficulties and costs.